


on (the tip of) her tongue

by inlightofvisa



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Teenage Werewolves, The things they do to your feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-04
Updated: 2012-12-04
Packaged: 2017-11-20 06:43:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/582438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlightofvisa/pseuds/inlightofvisa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If there was anything that Erica Reyes feared, it was the taste of blood in her mouth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	on (the tip of) her tongue

**Author's Note:**

> This has been romping through my head for awhile now. I just have this theory that Erica's sense of taste would be so much better than the other weres, just because that's how she had been sensing when her seizures were about to happen. It eventually exploded in my head and I had to get it down in writing...

The first thing Erica notices after being turned is that her mouth, her mouth feels! The taste of her seizures has gone for good, and her palette is left gloriously clean. She indulges in foods she’s never tried before for the first week of being a werewolf, and her mother is immediately suspicious.

“I didn’t know you liked Ethiopian food,” she says one day, eyeing the plastic bag Erica dangles from her index finger. Erica sighs, tries not too smile to wide, and brings a cherry-red manicured fingernail to her lips.

“I’ve been feeling… adventurous lately,” Erica says, grin breaking out across her face. “There are so many different things I can taste.”

“Well yes, honey, that’s how the human mouth works,” Erica’s mother sighs. “Now let’s eat, some food is better than nothing.”

***

Derek prattles on about scenting the air, using the keen sense of smell from the wolf to detect emotions and people. Erica tries using her nose, she really does, but she can’t quite get it exactly right.

“What’s fear even supposed to smell like?” she whines to Derek. Derek walks over to her and glowers, irises fading from their normal hazel into a dark, stormy red. Erica cowers, and suddenly her mouth is awash with the taste of lemons and as dry as the desert. She coughs, tripping backwards over her feet and onto the ground.  She smells a slight tang in the air as she opens her eyes, finding Derek kneeling on the ground next to her.

“Are you okay?” he asks, standing back up. The dry, lemony smell starts to fade and is slowly covered up by something else.

“I think so,” she says, fighting tremors in her body.

***

Erica kisses Derek. Or, more like attacks his face and calls it “unexpected.” She wipes her mouth as Derek shoves her off of him, growling.

“That’s the last time you do that,” he says. Erica scowls but sniffs a bit, picking up a bit on what she identifies to be Derek’s scent. It smells the way Derek tasted to her—woodsy, musky, and… soft.

“Why? Is it because I’m a _beta_?” she sneers. Isaac scoffs and Boyd just rolls his eyes. But Erica isn’t discouraged. She’s learning more about herself through this werewolf stuff than she’d ever imagined.

***

“I used to have a _crush_ on you,” Erica hisses from where she’s pushed Stiles up against the wall. He reeks of fear.

“What?” he says. Erica looks angrily at his mouth and tries to resist kissing him. Stiles isn’t someone that she needs to keep track of. Derek, on the other hand, sometimes falls off the map. It was really for the better that she kissed him, because she can find Derek no matter what.

“You never noticed me,” she says, stepping back. “Not until now.”

***

When Jackson rampages through the library in his werelizard abomination suit and slashes Erica, the first thing she senses as she collapses to the ground is that her mouth tastes like blood. Everything tastes like blood, the way seizures used to taste before all of this. She convulses on the ground and everything goes black.

 

Erica wakes up in Stiles’ arm in the train car, scrabbling for air and for something to put in her mouth, anything, anything to erase the taste of _blood_ —

And Derek snaps her arm and everything is so bright, sharp, and loud, and she can’t take it—

But then suddenly her mouth is resoundingly, and all she can do is sob through the pain.

 

The next few days after the kanima attack, Erica eats anything and everything. She tries to rid her mouth of the memory of the taste of blood, but this time it still lingers. So when food can’t cure anything, she turns to the next logical answer: people. She tries to force Isaac into kissing her, trying to explain everything but Isaac turns her down.

“I’m sorry,” he says, hands in his pockets. “I just can’t do that for you.”

The next option is Boyd. Quiet, quiet Boyd who nods in understanding as each word falls from her lips.

“Okay, Erica, I’ll help you out,” he says. They lock lips and suddenly the taste of blood is gone. Erica tastes what she can only describe as liquid moonlight and calm waters and rain. She pulls back from the kiss and looks up at Boyd.

“Wow,” she says.

“Wow,” Boyd echoes, starting to smile. “Did that help?”

“More than I even thought,” Erica says, breaking into a grin. She hugs him. “Thanks.”

As Boyd wraps his arms around her, Erica finds that she’s never felt so much at home. Boyd’s chest rumbles as he replies, and Erica laughs.

***

“You’ll always be running,” Derek says. Erica shakes her head.

“It’ll be better than here,” she responds. She catches a whiff of something sour and smacks her lips. It’s not as dry as the taste of fear, but it’s sour, salty, and full…

Boyd pulls on her hand and they run out of the train depot.

Erica doesn’t realize it’s crushing sadness until she tastes it in her own mouth, watching Boyd take arrow after arrow from Allison’s cruel, unmerciful crossbow.

“Please, Allison,” she wheezes. “Please, stop.”

And that’s just the start. As Gerard pummels and tortures them, and then _Stiles_ of all people, the grief is all she can taste. She can smell it rolling off Boyd in waves. As Gerard shoves Stiles out his door, Erica finds that she can’t stop crying. And soon, the smell and taste of sadness is so overwhelming that it stifles her, becomes her entire being until Chris Argent bursts through the door, clipping the bonds and untying their hands.

“Run,” he says, and they do.

The air rushes in her mouth, stinging down her throat and cutting through the sour taste of her sadness, and she leans her head back and howls. Boyd follows suit, but then Erica smells unfamiliar scents moving through the woods. Four of them.

As the four wolves come out of the woods, surrounding them, Erica reaches for Boyd’s hand. But instead of that helping, a dry, lemony taste floods her mouth.


End file.
